A Spark of Hope
by Panopticon
Summary: A parallel to Glory Boys: Knossos' secession was far from a unanimous decision. Emperor-fearing Imperial citizens still remain, in spite of the planet-spanning rebellion.


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++19.34 Hrs. {Sys. Local – Knossos.}  
Tempestus Seg. #1669/H

Agri-sub sector. Vidal. 22.12x43.70.

Quadrant 34 South.

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With a sharp _scritch_ and a ruddy flare of light, a brass bac-stick lighter illuminated the weathered countenance of one Matthias Praeter. He was a stocky, aging fellow, grown tough and leathery from decades spent farming under the harsh Knossos sun. His calloused hands cupped the lighter as he lit his bac-stick, shielding it from the breeze sweeping across the sea of grain fields surrounding the island of his home. It was a modest, two-story affair, solidly built and well-worn, the same as its owner. An oblong promethium tank squatted in the side yard beside the family automobile, in the bed of which sat a small pile of unused firewood. Around the back was the workshop and harvester garage, all of which was essential the Praeter family's continued survival.

From his vantage point on the front porch, Matthias slipped his lighter into a pocket on his oil-stained jacket, taking a pull from his bac-stick and hoisting his long-las back into his lap. It was a civilian-grade las weapon, with considerably less stopping power than the heavier weapons used by the Imperial Guard, but a dependable weapon nonetheless. He exhaled, releasing a plume of acrid smoke from his nostrils, keeping his eyes focused on a spot near the horizon. A tiny pinprick of light had appeared several minutes ago, and was growing in size as it headed in the direction of his home. In the gathering darkness, the light was easy to see. It drifted across the rolling fields and manicured farmlands of southern Vidal, occasionally dipping low to the horizon before surging back up to a higher altitude. Matthias watched with mounting concern as a discolored haze accompanied the light, now that it had grown to a black speck in the sky.

"Francesca, dear, come here for a moment," he called, shifting in his seat. From inside the darkened house, a middle-aged woman poked her head around the screen door before slipping out onto the porch. With a sun-kissed complexion like that of her husband, she was of typical Knossos stock, possessing of a slim build and friendly rustic charm. She had aged gracefully, though the lines of aging were making their inexorable advance along her bright features. She moved closer to her husband, heavy boots clunking along the floorboards as she followed his outstretched hand.

"You see that?" He asked, pointing towards the object. She leaned forward, hands on the stained knees of her blue coveralls.

"Yes, dear. Do you think it's the-?" She began, her brow creased with nerves.

"Not likely, haven't bothered us yet. Don't see why they'd start now." He shook his head. He took another pull from his bac-stick.

"Besides, it's comin' from down South. They've already had their way with the capitol. Nothin' left down there." He added solemnly.

"I'll get the children downstairs, in any case. Dinner will have to wait." Francesca decided, her dark eyes twinkling in the remaining sunlight. Matthias simply nodded his approval. As the screen door slapped shut again, he called over his shoulder:

"Get Remus down here; and tell him to bring his shotgun," he stood up from the bench, his legs tingling from the sudden motion. He reached down and retrieved his cap from beside him, dusted it off and cinched it down over his graying head. He stepped over to the porch railing, placing a hand on the peeling crossbar and looking ahead with a furrowed brow towards the smoking craft. Two pairs of booted feet descended the stairway inside, and the screen door burst open again as Matthias' eldest son Remus ran out onto the porch, bandolier of shotgun shells bouncing on his tall, broad shoulder.

"Ah, that's no good, 'pops," He exclaimed, thumbing a shell into the breech of his weapon. Matthias grunted in agreement, nodding toward the rapidly descending craft.

"Looks like it's gonna touch down over by Rance's place," He said, bac-stick bobbing as he spoke. Remus squinted into the gathering darkness.

"Yeah, that looks about right. What do you say, should we go take a look once it lands?" He asked without turning his head. At scarcely 19 Terran years, Remus was head and shoulders taller than Matthias and though he hadn't yet earned the rough complexion of his father, the square jaw and twinkle in his eye were all classic Praeter traits. Matthias turned to the young man:

" 'Course we should go look; if there's survivors, we need to help 'em." He declared, clenching his free hand on the railing to keep it from shaking. He didn't want his own son to see him nervous, but he had a bad feeling about this turn of events. The shriek of aircraft engines was fully audible now, and the billowing smoke leaking from the fuselage marred the empty dusk sky. With a bone rattling _crump _it crashed to the earth, sending up a great plume of superheated dirt and vaporized crop dust as it ploughed an ugly furrow in the amber grain fields. Matthias glanced to his son, but he was already gone, vaulting over the railing to his right and running for their battered truck.

"We'll be back," Matthias called into the house as he hustled across the porch and down the stairs, half-hopping down the last step. The glare of glow-globes cast jagged shadows along the rough dirt patch of their front lawn, and the telltale chugging of their truck's aging engine gurgled up from beside the house. The mud-crusted vehicle swung wide around the corner and skidded to a halt in front of Matthias, catching him in the yellow glare of the headlamps. Remus leaned his head out the driver's side window.

"Hop in," he shouted. Matthias slung his long-las and made his way to the passenger side of the truck's cabin.

-ii-

Matthias winced, straightening his back against his seat. The shock-absorption mechanisms in the truck were in desperate need of replacement, as was many of the other components. The life of an agri-worker had taken its toll, and his arthritic bones had difficulty resisting the rigors of a bumpy truck ride. Remus glanced through the grain stalks, trying in vain to get a glimpse of the crash site. A plume of smoke and ash was rising from the field to their left, several hundred feet away from their neighbor's abandoned house. He turned at the next junction and headed toward the house, slowing the vehicle as they drove parallel to the wreckage.

"Let's stop here," Matthias placed a hand on his Remus' shoulder, pointing past his son towards the field. His son nodded and brought the truck to a juddering halt, earning another silent grimace from the aging farmer. The two men leapt from their vehicle, hauling their weapons from the gun rack behind their seats and setting off into the grain field. After the noisome impact, a tense silence had settled over the surrounding area. As the Praeters stepped off the road and into the rows of gene-bulked wheat stalks, the encroaching twilight was redoubled. The crops surged overhead, some two feet over their heads, blocking the light of the setting sun. Matthias reached out and tapped Remus' arm, and whispered:

"_Stay close,"_

Remus nodded and pulled his shotgun into his shoulder, stepping with the balls of his feet as they crept towards the downed craft. As a young boy, Remus had grown up hunting small game in the mountains of Northern Vidal, before some the stroke of an Administratum pen had his family transferred to the plains regions. He knew how to track and hunt through dense woodlands, and how to avoid detection long enough to strike a deadly blow. If the occupants of this craft were alive and moving, they gave no sign of it yet.

"Did you see what kind of ship it was, 'pops? He whispered, flinching as a fuzzy field rodent skittered past his boot. His father squinted down the row, shaking his head.

"Too far to tell. Didn't look like no military ship, though. Too small." Matthias said. He swept his long-las in a narrow arc, the close-packed stalks of grain limiting the weapon's range of movement.

"Don'tcha think you should put that 'stick out? They might see it and get the drop on us," Remus whispered, following the wispy plume of bac-smoke that drifted up through the stalks. Matthias sneered and let the 'stick drop to the dirt, tamping it down with the toe of his boot and extinguishing the ember. The Praeters resumed their sneaking approach. Goosebumps prickled along the flesh of Remus' arm; he now wished he had taken his jacket, instead of just a simple cotton undershirt. After another few minutes of painfully slow creeping, Remus waved to his right, towards a vast furrow of upturned dirt that had appeared beside him.

"We're getting close," he whispered. He stepped out into the furrow, taking a split-second peek before ducking back into the stalks. When he looked, he was able to see the randomly flaring engines of the downed craft, sputtering slowly to their eventual death. It was a jet-black, personal aero-transport, often used by wealthy Imperial citizens. It was constructed with a sleek, twenty-foot fuselage, its sweeping elegant wings now little more than scrap metal. It ended in two flared, high-performance engines, plasma injectors evident as shallow conduits stretching along the top of the craft. A gunmetal anvil with a pair of wings was embossed along the fuselage – it belonged to one of the once-honorable manufactorum companies charged with supplying the planet's armor and weapon tithes to the Imperial Guard. From the front of the craft, beyond the Praeters' field of view, a soft concussive _crack _burst from the cockpit. The two men jumped, and dipped simultaneously into a low crouch before doubling their pace. With a powerful hiss of compressed air, the thermo-plas canopy of the craft jettisoned, swooping majestically before thudding into the scorched earth.

Remus and Matthias were alongside the craft now, weapons trained on the open cockpit. If the occupants – who were clearly still among the living – were the rightful owners of this ship…

"Oi! Come out of there nice and slow, now. Hands first," Matthias shouted, his gravelly voice echoing through the wheat stalks. Remus racked the slide of his shotgun, relishing the chance to put a load of buckshot into the traitors that had wrecked both their world and their livelihood. Muffled whispers could be heard, and after a moment, a man's voice sounded from within.

"We'll do as you wish, but we are not your enemy, citizen." It said. Matthias could feel his son's confused glance, but kept his weapon leveled at the cockpit. Slowly, a pair of gloved hands emerged from the wreck, followed by the buzzed head of a particularly scrappy looking man. He wore a finely tailored suit of ballistic synth-fiber, the ablative cloth catching the fading light. A sidearm holster was strapped across his chest, in which a slender las-pistol now rested. Remus took a slow step forward, bunching his muscles in preparation to fire.

"No? Funny, the last time we saw the emblem on your ship, it was on the side of a tank as it blast-" Remus countered, only to be cut off again by the man.

"This ship is not ours." the man said slowly, his irritation mounting.

"So you are thieves?"

"_Quiet_, Remus." Matthias sneered. The man kept his hands in the air.

"How many more of you are in there?" Matthias asked.

"There are two more. Please, citizen, we mean you no harm." The man insisted. The Praeters shared a tense moment of silence with the man, before Matthias swept his weapon to the side.

"C'mon out, then." He grunted. Remus sighed, and slung his weapon across his shoulders. If his father trusted this man enough to lower his own weapon, then that was good enough for him, he supposed. The man took a step back, and beckoned to the other occupants of the craft. He stooped down and raised the first survivor over the lip of the cockpit.  
Remus and Matthias blinked.  
A tall, slender woman of milky white complexion and a striking head of strawberry blonde hair emerged, clad in a similar set of ablative outerwear and similarly armed as the first man. As she descended the dented side of the craft, she carried herself with an unalienable air of dignity. Her booted heels pressed into the dirt, and she tied her hair into a tight ponytail as she addressed the two agri-workers with a voice like warm honey.

"Good evening to you – I would know the names of our rescuers," She eyed the two men expectantly. Matthias stepped forward quickly.

"Forgive us, Miss, if we had known you were trapped inside, we certainly would not have left you to-" He stammered. The woman put up a hand.

"Your _names_, good sirs." He pressed. Her body language bespoke of a remarkably relaxed state, but her words were sharp and she was in no mood to mince words. She spoke like a true politician. The weathered agri-worker swept his hat off his head and bowed respectfully.

"Ah, yes. I am Matthias Praeter, and this is my son, Remus. We tend these fields- when we saw you land, we came as quickly as we could." He explained, bowing respectfully. His son merely nodded to the woman. Matthias reached over and cuffed him across the back of his head.

"Show some respect, boy," He hissed. Remus winced and shrugged sheepishly, clearly confused at the sudden abuse. The woman merely laughed, stepping aside as the first man helped younger fellow out of the ship before leaping to the earth himself with several duffel bags in tow.

"I understand your son's confusion. I am Lady Astrid, Ordinate of the Knossos Administratum post. You will have to excuse my appearance this evening; I will admit that my public appearances had me looking considerably more polished." She explained to Remus.

"You were the one who spoke out against the High Chancellors?" He said slowly, piecing together the significance of her surprise visit.

"Indeed I am. And by your presence in this region, I'm safe to assume that you are no friends of Knossos' new leadership, yes?" She asked. The Praeters both muttered oaths under their breath.

"Emperor's Grace, no. Er, pardon my tone, Miss." Remus said softly. The stern-toned man stepped up beside Lady Astrid, the younger man – clad in the black garb of the Administratum – close behind.

"I hate to interrupt, but we really ought to get moving. It's getting dark." He said, passing a bag off to the young man behind him. She considered his statement for a moment, then nodded.

"A capital idea, Calder." She exclaimed, before turning to Matthias." You mentioned that your residence was not far from here, yes?" She asked. He pointed over his shoulder.

"Just up the road a bit."

"Excellent. I'm afraid I must ask for your hospitality, at least for tonight. We are, as you can see, severely lacking in terms of transportation." She gestured to the smoking craft behind her.

"But of course, Miss. We could never refuse the company of one of His servants." Matthias replied, waving the trio back into the field behind them.

"You are a good man, Matthias Praeter. We shall leave at once." She declared. The survivors were lead back through the canopy of wheat stalks and out to the Praeters' waiting truck. Matthias watched as his son kept an eye on Calder, whose hand remained placed on the grip of his las-pistol for the entirety of the trip. He smiled to himself; nothing got past that boy. As they reemerged into the dusty lane, he turned to his son.

"Remus, help the Lady and her company into the back, won't you?" He tugged the rust-jointed driver's side door open. Remus nodded and climbed into the back of the truck, first accepting the duffel bags from Calder. After hauling the man up alongside him, they loaded Lady Astrid and her Administratum underling into the creaky bed of the truck. As the engine came to life with a throaty rumble, Remus made sure everyone was sitting securely. He turned to Lady Astrid as the truck lurched into motion.

"Get ready for a bumpy ride."


End file.
